Fatal love
Black wagon
Four horse wagon traveled calmly through a main street of a village. The wagon was black and shiny. This meant the women of the village took their children inside and all the men stopped everything whatever they were doing. They all rose to stare the wagon.
Usually, when this kind of dark wagon appeared to the village all the people gathered to stare with some tool in their hands. Any tool that you can defend yourself with. They had hoes and axes, pitchforks and knives. Just in case.
This time the wagon just traveled through the village peacefully. The people recognized the wagon very well. It belonged to an evil count von Bickenbach. So, the wagon wasn't that scary anymore. Count von Bickenbach had never caused any troubles for the people of the village. But still he caused fearful feelings in among the village people just by being present.
It was a year 1307. The village's name was Boppard and it located in area which nowadays belongs to Germany, near Boppard city by the river.
The wagon disappeared in the woods and people got back to their work. Few of them spit after the wagon had gone.
Daily routines in the village was peaceful. Only sometimes they were interrupted only by those kind of wagons.
The count had secluded himself several years ago. He was living in his castle on a mountain with his servants few kilometers away from the village.
There was a rumor about the count in the village. According to the rumor the count was once fell in love with some young lady living in the village. The lady had rejected him crudely because he had wanted to marry her too quickly. After that the count had turned a dark and a gloomy man. Then he had built his castle.
Later he had to hire some servants to take care of the castle because it was so huge. But the count was very miserly. The person who was hired as a butler had to take care also riding the wagon and a housekeeper had to cook also. Everything had happened two decades ago.
The count had appropriate relationship to his employees. No one ever mentioned nor asked anything personal. And no one ever saw him smiling.
A year went by in a peace in the castle as well as in the village.
It was an early summer of 1308. There was a summer party in the village usually in this time of year. Depending on the weather, of course. But this year there wasn't. The weather had been chilly and cloudy for two days. Then it had started to rain for two days as well. Finally, it had turned into a dark thunderstorm.
People went inside to cover from the rain under their ryas. They leaned against each other in a fear of a thunder. People in the village generally thought the count had started the bad weather. The weather was like the count himself, dark, gloomy and cold. There were many horror tales about him. Especially, all the kids were afraid of the tales. Althought, every story had another side. In every story they always remember to mention a detail that the count also protected the village against outsiders with his evilness.
In the next evening the rain stopped as if by magic. The sun started to shine and clouds disappeared. People in the village came out of their covers to wonder the change in the weather.
There was something magical in that day because they never saw the count again in his wagon since that day. No one dared to go to the castle to see if there was anybody. No one didn't even want to think about such thing.
Discovery
In a beautiful evening of August 2010 a finnish young couple had travelled to to the Czech Republic. They had visited in Sedlec Ossuary in Prague. Now, they headed to Paris. They had lost bit in Frankfurt and therefore they found themselves from a small town of Boppard.
She seemed to be delighted to an idyll of a peaceful little town. So, she proposed that they could spent a night in the town. In somewhere nice little motel. It was already an evening so he agreed. They wouldn't go on until morning.
In the morning she had woken up before him and had sneaked to a window. She was just looking and admiring the peaceful village. She imagined the village had remained the same for centuries.
Fragile light green curtains blew mildly in the window. They let all the light to come in. It was bright in the room. Small birds were chirping outside and the atmosphere was really peaceful and calm. She smiled in a way only a true love can cause.
She closed her eyes and drew breath like trying to live in the moment. Then she opened her eyes and wrinkled her forehead a little. She turned around and saw her boyfriend. She stared her boyfriend who was still in asleep.
She didn't want to wake him up since he looked so happy and innocent while in sleep. He layed on a bed with a blanket half way on a floor. A leg sprawled in the middle of the bed. So she just turned around again and then she saw something on a mountain. Something dark like some sort of a building.
Guided tour
She might have been a bossy but anyway they had decided to go to see the castle more closely. Fortunately, there were organized guided tours on daily basis depending on amount of people.
They participated the last tour of the day and they were only participants there. Their guide was only glad that there wasn't any more people. Now, he could show places that he usually didn't show to the groups. This time he included more detailed information about the castle in his tour than usual.
At first, they looked at a main gate of the castle from outside. It was the only way they could approach the castle since it was built on top of a steep hill. There was more than tens of meters maybe even more than hundreds of meters down to a gulley. No one simple could go to the castle elsewhere than through the main gate.
They walked slowly in the castle looking around amazed. The guide told about a history of the castle. He told lots of things that he usually didn't tell for bigger and annoyingly loud crowds.
The guide told about rumors of the count von Bickenbach. He seemed like he was a bit afraid himself. His face seemed somehow scared and small red blotches appeared on his cheeks.
He had heard all the tales about the castle and the count already when he was still a child. He had born in Boppard. Maybe he just remembered the fear he had felt when he was a child.
The young couple listened the story about the count like in a trance. Where could have the count disappeared, they wondered themselves.
Until 1309 Boppard had been a free imperial city that had a certain amount of autonomy and was represented in the Imperial Diet. After that things had changed quickly in much worse. A peaceful idyll was gone inexplicably. And the glad, friendly and calm village people had become joyless and quarrelsome bunch of people. Also the summer parties wasn't organized any more.
The storm thundered outside and it started to rain. The guide seemed to turn pale. He looked upwards in the castle's highest hall like worrying something. The couple looked at each other surprised.
The guide ended the tour surprisingly like in the middle of it. He was going to leave the castle and recommended the couple to do the same. But he didn't actually tell them to do so. Usually the tourists had had a chance to walk around freely in the castle after the tour.
The couple wasn't superstition. In addition they were interested to see everything in the castle. They wanted to see and feel how the life had been during the castle's good days.
So they walked around hand in hand in the castle in its big halls and labyrinthine corridors. When they were at a small and humble seemed hall the thunder boomed outside somewhere pretty close. A bright flash came in through narrow windows somewhere up the hall.
Both of them startled the sudden sound. She jumped in his boyfriend's armpit instinctively.
They stepped slowly and carefully through a small doorway to a next room. It was a library of the castle. At least, there were lots of books shelf after shelf. There were shelves on every wall except the one with the doorway.
The thunder outside became louder and louder. For some reason it didn't sound so loud in the library. Because of that the couple stayed there to explore carelessly old dusty books covered with spider webs.
He was going to take one of the books to explore it more closely. When he draw the book it felt like it got stuck. So he tried more harder. The whole shelf moved inside the wall and turned aside.
They looked at each other and at the same time a bright light flashed the whole room. Somewhere from the other rooms of the castle evolved a loud thunder like it had gathered more strength from the other rooms first. They flinched and took a few steps forward.
There was a staircase down into a darkness in front of them. They stepped in ahead hand in hand watching their every step. He dug a keychain with an inefficient flash light out of his pocket. With the help of the light they saw barely where to step.
Obviously, it was a thunder again outside since they heard a loud rumbling in the dark staircase. The sound came behind them like it was a force pushing them forward. At least, it made them to walk faster. Eventhough, they weren't in a hurry. They actually didn't even want to see the rest of the staircase anymore.
They had to stop. There was some kind of a gate or a door in front of them. It was easy to open with a small movement of a wrist. A heavy wooden door opened and three skeletons falled down on them. The skeletons were leaning to the door. It scared them and they stepped few steps back.
The loud thunder again. And again it seemed like it had gathered more strength from the rocky walls of the castle. It made their trouser legs to flap. It also made the door in front of them to close. They didn't realize that also the door behind them started to move slowly at the same time.
The rain stopped as if by magic. The sun started to shine and clouds disappeared.
Aku